Scaling Niche Markets with Chris Doyle

[00:00:00] Chris: There’s nothing better than you talking about your brand and getting that shelf space, with the customer, than another incredible brand talking about your brand. 

[00:00:10] Courtney: Hi, my name is Courtney, and welcome to How They Scaled It, where scaling is done with both sides of the brain. On this show, we sit down with growth stage businesses and speak to founders and industry leaders from e commerce, SaaS sectors, and more. We showcase their journeys, unpacking the pivotal moments, marketing strategies, and key decisions that shaped their success.

[00:00:30] Courtney: Today, I’m bringing on Chris Doyle. Chris is the president and CEO of Build, a financial solution company that empowers subcontractors across the U. S. I wanted him to help us understand niche market innovation and strategies for scaling a specialized financial services company. Chris is a practical innovator and an advocate for contractors, driven by a belief in empowering growth through transparent and specialized financial solutions and long term partnerships.

[00:00:57] Courtney: Chris, it is great to see you and welcome to How They Scaled It.

[00:01:00] Chris: Thank you. Excited to chat today.

[00:01:02] Courtney: Amazing. To start out, um, could you just tell me why you, uh, founded Build and what the original purpose was?

[00:01:12] Chris: Well, um, at why I founded real, I want to start a company. Um, I want us to start a company. I was busting at the, at the, at the seams. Um, and I, I think most founders and not just founders, but anyone with the entrepreneurial spirit, their, their mind is constantly, um, running on. Well, that’s inefficient. Uh, we should do that.

[00:01:37] Chris: We should do that. And, um, At the end of the day, it takes a compelling idea and then someone that wants to put some muscle behind it and then capital. And sometimes those things are not all aligned. You have a compelling idea, but it competes with another, uh, or, or it’s just not the right time for the muscle.

[00:01:59] Chris: But even when those team, those two match, which often match, uh, find a match, you need capital as well, especially in a financial product. And it just so happened that, um, I had a really great relationship with our private equity, uh, firm, which is our primary sponsor at build, uh, and was at another portfolio company when this opportunity came up.

[00:02:21] Chris: So it was really, um, the, the right time for all three. And so, um, you know, started the company.

[00:02:27] Courtney: Yeah, no, I always, whenever I talk to founders, it’s, there’s always this element of the stars aligning. You have to have the right idea at the right time with the right backing in order for it to all kind of, like, come together. Um, when you think about the original vision for Build, what beliefs or assumptions did you have at the beginning that have changed over time? 

[00:02:49] Chris: Um,

[00:02:50] Chris: You know, not, not a lot as far as assumptions around the business. Um, sorry about the problem that we’re solving. A lot, certainly a lot of things as we stand six years from now from starting the business are quite different. Um, but it’s, it’s actually interesting when you think about how, how some of the core things were right.

[00:03:12] Chris: Um, and I just, I re I remember making decisions like what should the term be? What should this be? What, how should we go to market? And it was just like, A 15 minute interval of talking about it with the co founder. It’s like, let’s do that.

[00:03:28] Courtney: Mm hmm. Yeah.

[00:03:32] Chris: months figuring out comp plans and it’s like this, we should just be able to make decisions much faster.

[00:03:39] Chris: Um, and so, no, I, I do think, um, a lot has changed, but can’t, but honestly, with the pain point was well known to me, uh, and the co founder, uh, Jesse. Uh, and so. It was really a matter of how we solve it, how we solve it profitably and how we solve it in a way that we can distribute the product across such a large industry.

[00:04:00] Courtney: Yeah. Well, it’s interesting, too. It sounds like the problem hasn’t changed necessarily, but I mean, you guys went through COVID and that that must have changed the entire industry and the entire landscape that you were working within. How do you feel like COVID changed the way that you approached build and these financial solutions?

[00:04:21] Courtney: Um,

[00:04:22] Chris: You know, it didn’t a lot and mostly because we were so early. I don’t remember the stage, but you know, we had we had certainly had several million outstanding, um, in financing and The, I guess the modern economy has just never had this scenario before. And so in a risk management business, you know, it’s the first thing you do is lock everything door, like lock all the doors, lock all the windows.

[00:04:48] Chris: Right. And um, and then, and then advocacy, right? So the first thing like, Hey, just be very careful about the deals that we’re doing. And then advocacy for our customer to say, Hey, make sure that your business is healthy here and do not take any unnecessary risk. Because especially the first few months there, there was a lot of uncertainty and, um, you have, you know, a fixed cost base.

[00:05:16] Chris: Most, most subcontractors have, they pay their labor as a fixed cost, right? So they’re either salary or direct contractors that are 100 percent tied to that company. And so, um, I think that left our customer with a situation where they’re going, I cannot pay this. I do not. There were, it was a pretty short amount of time because construction was essential workers.

[00:05:37] Chris: Um, but there, there was a lot of uncertainty at the time and we were just out in the market saying, do not sink the ship, make sure that your company survives. And I think everyone after the fact is saying like, thank goodness we just survived and some had much tougher troubles than we did. But You know, that advice was, we were just like constantly to our customers, but we were really fine.

[00:06:00] Chris: We did not have a lot of cost. Um, you know, we had really great guidance from our board and, um, you know, from a credit perspective, it did not have any impact. In other words, we didn’t have any increased like delinquencies or losses or anything like that.

[00:06:16] Courtney: Wow, that’s, that’s pretty impressive. I suppose that the way that build is structured, um, There is some risk, but ultimately, um, like you said, contractors were, construction is an essential worker, so I guess that really played in your favor.

[00:06:32] Chris: Yeah, I mean, the most important thing to us is that our customers are in good financial health. And however we can achieve that through opening working capital, through, you know, uh, content on sharing best practices, because, you know, we have a lot of people with construction experience. I’ve been in construction for 25 years, but you know what?

[00:06:50] Chris: I’ve also never run a 40 million subcontractor business. So I actually don’t know, but we have a lot of customers that do know. And so, so giving them a platform to share that information is super important to us. And I always say like, if you ever look at our content, you’ll actually find that. Little is, is directly from us.

[00:07:09] Chris: You’ll see some from me and you’ll see some from, um, the co founder and a few others that are very, uh, um, experienced in the industry, but we never try to come across, I’m, I’m quite conscious about this, like that we know, cause we actually don’t know.

[00:07:25] Courtney: Yeah, well, and it feels like, um, someone or a contractor doing a million dollars in annual revenue is going to have a very different experience than someone doing 40 million dollars in revenue. So you really got to kind of bridge that gap between those. There’s a lot of different variants that you probably need to cover.

[00:07:44] Courtney: Right. Yeah.

[00:07:49] Chris: for us. I think this is why we’ve been successful, is that we don’t talk to our customers like they’re, they’re idiots. And a lot of people look at construction and they think, okay, owner operator, um, not, you know, potentially not a, you know, Harvard MBA, Stanford MBA, uh, former banker.

[00:08:10] Chris: You don’t see a lot of ex McKinsey, you know, by electrical contracting business. Um, But these guys are like serious entrepreneurs and, um, we treat them as, as such, uh, with that respect. Um, and we know that there are always going to be gaps. We have gaps, they have gaps. So we’re trying to serve those with content.

[00:08:30] Chris: Um, and especially if you hit certain inflection growth moments in your business, um, it’s just really, uh, for any business, right. And certainly with our customer that they have support and really know what that horizon looks like. Um, that’s what a lot of our stuff is focused on. I don’t think I answered your question at all.

[00:08:51] Chris: By the way, I just started talking about this stuff

[00:08:53] Courtney: no, no, that that all makes sense. And it actually kind of leads me into another question I had around, uh, staying transparent. I know with build transparency is really important to you and you want to treat your, your customers, with the respect that they deserve as really these like savvy businessmen.

[00:09:10] Courtney: Um, but there, you are introducing a brand new concept. Build is not something that is also out there a million different ways. It’s build is a very unique solution. And so when you’re introducing these new financial tools, um, how do you guys approach that education to make sure they understand exactly what they’re getting and how they pair build with their other working capital solutions?

[00:09:32] Chris: and that’s been the biggest evolution of our business and how we talk to our customer. Um, you know, when we first started the business, most B to B lenders have pure play. Well, first of all, there’s either a bank, which is a direct relationship with the business, their banking partner. They have a banking person that, you know, there’s an ongoing relationship.

[00:09:54] Chris: And one day they say, look, let’s give you a line of credit. And then everybody else is just like digital flow where you have a go to market, all digital go to market and similar, like a credit card, sometimes a paper, sometimes, you know, direct mail, but it’s normally an online flow. And that’s like capturing the customer.

[00:10:13] Chris: And then, um, there’s some encouragement at some point, different promotions or whatnot, for you to use the product. Um, and we are, uh, we did, we tried that, right? So some of this is, um, how you would draw it up on a whiteboard. You say, well, this is the most effective go to market. And we found out very quickly that, um, the, the process just, it didn’t just take education of what we are, but also how to properly use debt, um, to, to run your business and solve for working capital.

[00:10:41] Chris: Uh, but also how do you properly include that? That cost of your, your weighted cost of debt, cost of working capital, uh, into your bid such that, you know, great. If things work out where you get paid early, right, that just adds to your net margin. But if not, then, um, you know, you’re not, it’s not eroding into your margin.

[00:11:04] Chris: Um, and, and, you know, the, the thing is, um, I think this is probably pretty well known that, um, margin and construction is, is slim, you know, so you, you have, uh, Generally, you’re looking at around 35 percent gross, depending on how you define gross and, you know, some, some number between five and 10 net profit as a subcontractor.

[00:11:25] Chris: And so you, you have opportunity to increase that through operational efficiency, procurement of material there, you know, your management of the general contractor, right? So it’s like, um, if you know, your productivity is a certain amount and they’re not giving you that space to perform the work, like you have to be a little more rigid.

[00:11:41] Chris: There’s always that opportunity. But, um, you’re not always dealt with the best cards in that way. So, uh, it’s really important for us to make sure that our customers maintain margin.

[00:11:53] Courtney: right.

[00:11:53] Chris: Um, so again, I’m probably not answering your question fully. Um,

[00:12:00] Courtney: Well, no, I, I think that what I’m hearing is that you guys really approach it from a partnership perspective. So you’re not coming in and telling your, your customers, we are replacing all of your cash flow needs. Like, everything is going to come through build. What you’re saying is, is it? There’s a really smart way of doing this because you can’t just have like one working capital solution.

[00:12:22] Courtney: You really should have a bunch of different tools. Build is one of those tools. And we can help you kind of figure out the best way to like work your margin and work your timelines. So that you’re getting more. And you can start growing. I think with Build, it’s about allowing people to grow more efficiently.

[00:12:39] Chris: yeah, and you just can’t do all those things through a digital process. So we’ve, you know, we’ve pivoted to this. Um, you know, we have an active sales team that’s bifurcated for the most part of The initial process of getting approved your first few projects and then, um, typical to other companies, you have someone that owns the relationship thereafter and, um, making sure that they’re all communicating the same principles has been an important near term evolution on exactly what you said, which is, and this is always the tricky part about financing companies.

[00:13:16] Chris: Is that you can’t just like grow 100 percent year over year. It just doesn’t work like

[00:13:20] Chris: that. You can, but you’ll got a business and there’s lots of evidence of that. Um, and, um, so it takes a very, um, I wouldn’t say conservative, but just mindful growth, a scale and, um, you know, our, uh, our evolution from a go to market and a relationship with a customer, um, has been like quite significant in that way.

[00:13:45] Chris: Um, And, you know, I think it’s like we have such high repeat usage, right? Um, year over year that that’s a testament to that, that go to market being successful.

[00:13:56] Courtney: Yeah, I mean, and just a proven product, like this is something that that works for people. Once they figure out what it is, it just makes a lot of sense for them to keep using it.

[00:14:05] Chris: You know, and it’s not just them, the customer that has to figure out what it is. There’s, you know, our, our product can affect other stakeholders in the, in the, in the, on a project. And so I think there’s a learning curve for the entire industry, not to say that we’ve touched, you know, the entire industry just yet.

[00:14:20] Chris: We’re still. You know, we’ve we’ve come a long way, but we still have a lot more to go. And, you know, 1. 5 trillion industry. But, um, other what we would call like a project, stakeholders, architects, general contractors, property owners, et cetera, um, banks, um, you know, them being aware of what we are when we are introduced on a project.

[00:14:41] Chris: It’s also been a learning curve.

[00:14:43] Courtney: Yeah. Were there any kind of unexpected strategies or feedback that you got when You’re kinda thinking about the way you approach relationships with the subcontractors and those other stakeholders.

[00:14:55] Chris: I mean, A little bit. But this is where my experience in construction has been really helpful. It is hard to find a team of people that have experience of construction, right? Because our business fundamentally, we’re not building anything from a structure standpoint. We are. We’re technology and and financing and payments business, right?

[00:15:23] Chris: And so finding people that have that experience is tough. Um, and it’s a, you know, everyone always says the construction is a relationship, uh, business, uh, and industry and it is, but that relationship goes two ways. And I know that well, and I know what it’s like to knock on doors metaphorically, um, for years to get a general contractors business, then stub our toe on that project and, you know, kind of have your tail between your legs.

[00:15:56] Chris: But then also them, you know, kind of push around a little bit and say, you know what? That’s not right. No, we’re, uh, I’m sorry, Mr. Superintendent or Mrs. Project Manager, whatever, uh, like we’re actually look, we’re going to show up. We’re going to show them, get our work done. We’re going to get it on time safely.

[00:16:13] Chris: We’re going to do all the things, but like, you got to get this shit out of the way. Like you got, you know, and same thing with like payments, which is the main problem that we’re solving for. It’s, I know what it’s like to go to a general contractor and say, yeah, I knocked on your door for two years, but you’re going to still pay me.

[00:16:27] Chris: Like, it doesn’t work that way. You can’t just string me out. You, you know, I did my part of this. Now you need to do yours. And so that, that understanding is really important with our customer. So we expect that they have that conviction with their customer, but they need to have the same with us. And they know that we, we will not back down in this way.

[00:16:46] Chris: It’s like, look, we’re here to support you. This is our role in your business. But we’re not anything more than that. We’re going to enable you. This is your part, right? And, um, that, you know, that being instilled within the organization is super important. And you hear it like it did take some calibration with the team.

[00:17:04] Chris: You know, I just hear a call and go, Nope, our customers are going to talk to us that way. Or more importantly, I say you will not talk to a customer that way. Right? Because this is our mistake. This is what happened, right? It’s like, so having that conviction across the organization has been really important and I think our customers recognize it, right?

[00:17:21] Chris: You hear other wouldn’t say competitors with players, you know, in the space, including the just pure play technology companies that, you know, aren’t competition in any way. You can hear the way they talk to the customer and there is just a fundamental difference sometimes.

[00:17:36] Courtney: Yeah, I think that finding people who have experience in the construction, business who would in a form of life be the avatar or, you know, a potential customer of build, was a really smart way of understanding how to, how to bridge that gap and like, talk to them the way that they’re used to. And understanding like the construction industry is a complicated space.

[00:17:56] Courtney: There’s a lot of different players involved. Um, but that seems to have really paid off when you think. So like that kind of covers the. The relationship side on the technology side and the data side. How have you guys used, uh, data analytics to drive your decision making process and change your products to be more effective?

[00:18:18] Chris: Yeah, in a very powerful way. So I’m going to answer this a long way. You may have to remind me of the question halfway through. Uh, we, um, and I’ll just brag for a moment. We, we just closed on, um, a new facility with the institute with, uh, and I won’t mention the name just yet because the press release hasn’t come out, um, with a major financial institution.

[00:18:43] Chris: Um, and the way that works typically like a warehouse line, you might get like a private facility somewhere. And then you evolve to a line like this and the next level of evolution is like securitization. Normally there’s a rating agency like a right that that that rates the asset. And so we just closed this facility, which is the first time that institutional capital has been put to work solving for commercial construction, um, supply chain finance dysfunction.

[00:19:14] Chris: And that is the building block of efficient. Capital flowing into the industry that that even if Billd is unsuccessful, others will build on top of to make the, the, the supply of capital, um, um, higher volume and at lower cost. And we’re super proud of that. Now, how do we get there? We got there by taking a super innovative approach with how to assess the customer, the risk, which was based less on the customer itself and more on the project, the general contractor and other attributes.

[00:19:48] Chris: That all tie into the project ecosystem, and we are able to effectively. I always say this. We will provide the right amount of the all all the working capital customer needs a real subcontractor on a real project needs, and so we’ve developed the right exposure limits, things like that to make sure that we can always do that.

[00:20:12] Chris: But we have, we’ve collected, you know, we’re collecting hundreds of attributes on every financing that we have based on the project, the property, all these things and got some pretty compelling data that shows how do we put capital to work here in the most efficient way at low loss rates, right? That’s what we’re trying to avoid is loss rates.

[00:20:31] Chris: And, um, we have a lot of IP on this too. Um, you know, we’ve, we’ve got, um, I think 10 patent applications. One, one has been issued. Um, And this is like the most powerful thing of our business that we can now build on. Right. It’s like we, we don’t need to reinvent anything. We can just keep feeding that data.

[00:20:50] Chris: It’s super compelling.

[00:20:52] Courtney: Yeah, yeah, so, um, I think, you said a lot of really interesting things. One of the, the kind of cool things, um, just as a founder is to Be so disruptive in an industry that you almost create a sub industry. So having something that maybe bill doesn’t last forever. I hope it does. I hope that it continues to grow and, um, and scale, but you’re kind of opening the door for other, um, similar companies to come in and, you know, And really make a better world for construction and make, make it cheaper to do construction and make more money from it, which is incredible.

[00:21:28] Courtney: And it’s also probably something that people can kind of study and apply to other industries that aren’t getting the right kind of financing options for the way that their industry works. Um, so it really opens a lot of doors, which is, is something to be proud of.

[00:21:43] Chris: Yeah, no, uh, we certainly are proud and I hope the team is as well.

[00:21:48] Courtney: you, when you think about your marketing strategies over the years, um, what has been the most effective in getting the word out about build and driving growth?

[00:21:58] Chris: Well, I think from the early days, and this is something that all, and I’m going to go off script here, all founders struggle with, which is what did they think, um, Um, and what the investors think, what advisers think, what is your CMO, what is your head of sales thing? And, um, especially early, you’re trying to do everything so sophisticated.

[00:22:23] Chris: You’re trying to like, well, we have this thing that scales and blah, blah, blah, blah, like all these like fancy stuff. But at the end of the day, what is the most effective is tricky. It’s like, it’s just that what’s most effective and it’s hard to test everything. Yeah. And you tend to start at the very top of your, you know, your McKinsey list.

[00:22:44] Chris: And so, um, if I were to draw that up, I can just flip that around and that’s the most effective, um, unfortunately. Uh, so, uh, you know, early days, again, very digital, right. And we found that customers would come on. They didn’t know what the product was. They didn’t know what we were. Um, and they didn’t realize what they just signed up for.

[00:23:07] Chris: Um, and so that’s why I said we kind of flipped that upside down to a much, um, heavier touch, um, process to onboard the customer. And, um, so if I, if I talk about marketing strategies, um, you know, the, the, the call it the direct performance side. Um, isn’t I mean, it’s helpful to raise awareness, but what we found more than everything, it’s all multi touch, right?

[00:23:36] Chris: So we can, we can serve that ad all day long, but it doesn’t really do anything for us from like a direct perspective. I mean, sure, sometimes someone clicks on an ad and they come to our platform, they sign up, we call them and they convert. That does happen. But what we found more than anything is we really have to do lots of different things.

[00:23:56] Chris: We have to do brand awareness. We have to direct response. We’ve done some direct mail. We’re out in the industry. Um, what has probably been most effective is, is that out in industry or what I would call in territory, not just industry. So we’re at an event. We talked to a supplier. Supplier says we should talk to this customer of, you know, that, that, um, you mentioned you guys the other day.

[00:24:19] Chris: And now is that the, you know, Is that the most scalable? Well, that you get a flywheel there when, when your reputation gets out there and you start, you know, getting really great partners and things like that. Um, but it’s, it is mostly reputational. It’s mostly boots on the ground. Uh, that’s been, been the most effective.

[00:24:38] Chris: And again, um, from a cost perspective, certainly that’s there, but when you’re building, not to cheapen this, but when you’re building this LTV, Like that’s, that’s where it’s at. I mean, the, the LTV on these, the relationships is, is really good. So it can afford that.

[00:24:55] Courtney: Yeah. Well, in serving or kind of delivering a product like yours, which is a little bit more complex, there’s a longer sales cycle and it’s higher value. Like you said, that’s going to take something like a very holistic marketing marketing strategy. Like, you can’t just serve ads and expect it to work or just go to conferences and expect that to work.

[00:25:15] Courtney: Like you need A digital side that is supporting and educating. So then when they do meet a salesperson, then they already have something in their head about what it is, and you can take those lists from the conferences that you go to, and you can feed it into LinkedIn and Meta, and you can target those people.

[00:25:32] Courtney: And so, all of those things, I’m sure, kind of work together for, like you said, a multi touch approach. Um, I think a lot of times when I talk to founders, they want one solution, like, what platform do we need to be on? And it’s just investing in being kind of everywhere that your customers are and trying to talk to them as much as you can.

[00:25:54] Courtney: Um, and just trying to get in the same room with them, which sounds like what you guys are doing.

[00:25:57] Chris: Yeah. And in partnership strategies has been incredibly helpful, uh, as well, because there’s nothing better than you talking about your brand and getting that, that, um, shelf space, so to speak with the customer, uh, than another incredible brand talking about your brand. And so that is especially, you know, early adopter kind of construction, you know, doesn’t necessarily want to adopt something new that’s been very powerful when, um, whether it’s a technology partner, whether it’s like an Amex who we just launched a partner with partnership with, whether it’s the supplier itself, which you launch a partner partnership with, um, that that goes a long way

[00:26:38] Courtney: Yeah,

[00:26:39] Chris: and, you know, a lot, it’s like, you know, Because a lot of those partners, I can’t talk to every single customer, although we talked to a lot of the customers, I talked to a lot of customers and, but I do talk to pretty much all the partner CEOs at some stage.

[00:26:53] Chris: So this like nod, you know, cause there’s a reputation there of going, well, this guy knows the space. He’s doing things that are healthy for the organization, he or she. And, um, as opposed to sometimes you get other companies, you’re like, eh, like that one, uh, is like. I don’t know. Um, we’ll see. Maybe they’re well funded.

[00:27:13] Chris: Maybe. I don’t know about this one. Um, but like people can make up their own mind. So when you get that, like, call it the good person, not as is incredibly helpful.

[00:27:22] Courtney: Yeah, yeah. Do you get a lot of referrals from your existing customers, so subcontractors referring their other subcontractor friends? Okay.

[00:27:33] Chris: 30 percent referral. Um, and that, that doesn’t necessarily mean a customer referral, but a referral of some, some sort, um, is, is our new logo about 30%.

[00:27:44] Courtney: Yeah, that’s, that’s pretty solid. So kind of switching gears to more build as a company. As you guys have grown, have you had to adopt your own leadership style, just as the company has scaled, while maintaining alignment with your mission?

[00:28:01] Chris: well, I own leadership style. Um, it’s really hard to fake leadership tactics. Um, and it’s funny, I was thinking about this this morning. Um, what, what, what drove this? I don’t remember. Um, but, um, I think I was thinking from a team perspective, how sometimes you just have natural leaders step up in a group of peers and you’re just like, whatever reason they’re just like the one, you know, the one everyone follows.

[00:28:27] Chris: That’s not me. So in a group of, of my peers, um, you know, let’s say eight people, I may not necessarily rise to like, Oh, let’s all follow Chris yet. I am in a CEO role. So, um, going through in my, in my case, six years in the business, I just can’t fake who I am. I can’t fake that. I’m something I’m not. And so you really have to do a bit of soul searching there.

[00:28:53] Chris: Certainly continue to. Level up, um, from, uh, we’ll call that from an aperture standpoint of, you know, understand your biases, understand your blind spots, understand areas that you want to be sharper in, but you’re not going to turn into something different. It just, it’s too much stress. I don’t have, you know, four hours a day to like train up to this other thing that I’m not.

[00:29:18] Chris: And so you’ve got to embrace that. Um, I’ll probably say some cliche things around, um, Building, you know, a team around you, but well, I say this all the time. The most important thing is that you trust your, your team. And I should say that differently, that your, your team has earned your trust and that’s their, their, um, thing to earn, not mine.

[00:29:40] Chris: And just like, it’s my thing to earn their trust. And that’s probably the most important thing, because regardless of, you know, how people would rate me as a leader, if, you know, If they could all rate me as a zero, if I’ve earned their trust and vice versa, we can make some like bad ass things happen. And that’s generally how we approach the business.

[00:30:00] Courtney: Yeah. Well, and I can speak from experience. You’ve hired some very brilliant people that are, that are, um, really passionate about the work that you do. And I, I think that also, Because I always say, like, you can’t ask someone to be something that they’re not. And not everybody gets to work for every company.

[00:30:17] Courtney: So, there are some people who just won’t fit into Bill, just like there are some people who just won’t fit into right left agency, uh, my agency. And, but it’s interesting to kind of turn that around and say, like, I can’t ask myself to be someone I’m not, so I need to find ways to make my strengths work.

[00:30:34] Courtney: for leading this company, um, without trying to turn into, you know, Steve Jobs or

[00:30:40] Chris: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, that’s exactly right. I mean, it’s, it’s a nice little aspiration, right? It’s like, I, I, I can get a little fired up when I hear from another CEO and I’m like, wow, I like,

[00:30:53] Chris: I’ll take that little talk track. But when, when you’re in the trenches, like I can talk track my way out of a lot of things in like little situations, but the end of the day, it’s like everyone knows my core, 

[00:31:06] Chris: right? Because like, I just can’t hide. Um, and so you have to recognize what that is, embrace it and, and just be like, at some level with your teams, like you guys know, you 

[00:31:19] Courtney: yeah, you signed up for this.

[00:31:20] Chris: I’m not so.

[00:31:22] Courtney: Yeah, do you, um, how do you approach building a culture, uh, with Build? Because I actually got to visit your office a few months ago, and it was such a cool space, and they, you guys were having like AI talks, and there was just this feeling of growth and innovation there. Um, how would you describe your, your own culture?

[00:31:41] Courtney: Mm,

[00:31:44] Chris: question to answer, um, you know, I, I think any CEO has their hand on culture, uh, quite a bit. Um, and it’s unfortunately like a little bit of soup without knowing what the agree like labels on your ingredients. So sometimes, and you don’t cause all of it, right? So it’s not like I determined the culture.

[00:32:09] Chris: It’s what it is. And, um, sometimes you, you know, grab the sugar and it’s actually salt and you’re like, Oh, shoot. Um, so I, you know, this is a really tough one. I’m really proud of our culture at times. I’m extremely frustrated with it at other times. And so it’s like a little bit of this like kind of steering and, uh, it can be, you can feel quite helpless sometimes though, when it’s not what you envisioned and it’s not what you want.

[00:32:37] Courtney: Mm hmm.

[00:32:37] Chris: But back to blind spots, there are other times where you’re like, you’re being a dick, um, and you don’t realize it and you need a, you need a culture of, you know, you want to make sure you’ve adopted that, that culture of transparency or sorry, openness where someone can say, Hey, you’re being a jerk here.

[00:32:52] Chris: Um, so that’s a really long way of saying, I have no idea.

[00:32:57] Courtney: Well, I think what’s interesting, too, is that you’re You still very much are a startup, and so startup culture is such a unique thing that it’s just constantly changing, and you’re figuring out what is salt and what is sugar. So I don’t think you should be too hard on yourself around that, because I think it’s not something that settles into itself until you are kind of out of that startup mode.

[00:33:19] Courtney: Um, we kind of talked about this a little bit with you, kind of, Going through COVID and not seeming to affect too much, which is great. But do you have any practices that helps keep your team moving forward and resilient when there are kind of these really regular economic fluctuations and which seem to impact construction industry quite a bit?

[00:33:42] Courtney: Yeah.

[00:33:46] Chris: I wouldn’t, I’ll just say it’s been a struggle for us because there have been, you know, spans of months where we’ve not grown yet. We’ve put a lot of compelling things in place to grow. 

[00:33:59] Courtney: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:34:04] Chris: of it.

[00:34:04] Chris: Uh, and it’s like, we’re in Austin, very innovative town, a lot of amazing companies, um, a lot of great talent, a lot of technology companies. Maybe they don’t have the same burdens that we do from a credit risk perspective and raising capital and being maybe a more attractive asset for, for, for venture capital.

[00:34:25] Chris: Um, and that, you know, that’s been a challenge. Um, we’ve also had very ambitious goals, so we don’t ever project flat growth. We always project up. And so when you don’t hit that, it can be discouraging. And, um, we, you know, we’ve spent a lot of time on this topic. Um, And making sure the team has the right motivation point forward, but also, um, has the, I don’t even know what you call it, the determination to continue to pick up.

[00:34:56] Chris: We call it relentless,

[00:34:58] Chris: which is a core value, right? Um, and, um, that that’s just really important. It’s important when you’re hiring to to say, look, you’re not always going to win. Um, I, I think the way we present it now is like, look, I know I’m a winner and that sounds gonna sound really confident. I am, and I, I hire winners and we, and I don’t do all the hiring, but we hire winners and, um, I don’t need a, um, scoreboard to always tell us that, that we’re winning.

[00:35:25] Chris: Um, we have a lot of conviction of the customer we’re doing, um, we’re, um, solving problems for them. Um, I know, I know every executive decision at my desk and how it’s made and, and, and, and how those calls like those principles, I would say, and I just feel really good about that. So, um, we do have to look in the mirror.

[00:35:47] Chris: Sometimes they go, look, we, uh, are done all this stuff and these amazing things. So, yeah, the last four months have been great, but like you got to refire yourself back up.

[00:35:55] Chris: Um, but I think every, I think every entrepreneur probably is looking at another company. And going, dang, I wish I would have hit that metric.

[00:36:04] Chris: And, um, you know, maybe absent, uh, you know, a few super high flyers. Um,

[00:36:13] Courtney: yeah, well, what’s, um What I like about that is that what you’re doing is you’re tackling self doubt. So, a lot of people struggle with self doubt and especially people who are winners and people who are pursuing excellence always. Um, you, it’s always really easy to say, what could we do better? Which is good, that’s healthy, especially when running a business.

[00:36:33] Courtney: But, reminding yourself that, you know, you wouldn’t work here if you weren’t. Qualified if you weren’t a winner, you know, he we wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t done all these amazing things and honestly You guys are disrupting an industry. You’re you’re creating something brand new. So obviously there’s not it’s not gonna be perfect all of the time But that relentlessness is so important to your culture.

[00:36:56] Courtney: I bet

[00:36:56] Chris: yeah. And I think that’s an example of some of the leadership stuff. Like this isn’t something I would intuitively thought to remind people of. And it’s, uh, it is the role of the CEO to keep restating those. So that’s not really a natural thing for me, but I’ve, I’ve realized how important it is to. Make sure that everyone feels that kind of winning, um, momentum, I would say.

[00:37:20] Chris: And it’s like, Hey, look where we’re at. Um, again, and then you, you like, I hear that from, from employees. Like, ah, Chris, like you kind of could use a little bit this, like, okay. Like I’m always, I feel like I’m boring you guys. I’m always happy to talk about this stuff. 

[00:37:34] Courtney: Yeah, just kind of re sharing that vision over and over again, keep people moving. 

[00:37:39] Courtney: Yeah. When you think about, um, what’s next for Build, it sounds like you’ve got a lot of things cooking, which is very exciting. Are there any emerging financing models or other things that you’re exploring that, um, you’re going to be building out over the next two years for subcontractors? Any that you care to share?

[00:38:01] Chris: Yeah, no, I, I, look, I, um, it’s, we’ve had a important conversation with ourselves around what do we want to be? Um, and what I mean by that is our, right now our, we have a few products. Uh, our biggest revenue drivers right now are both financial products. Uh, we have a lean services product, which generates revenue.

[00:38:23] Chris: And then we have a couple of other technology products that we just give away for free. And, um, you know, there’s a, there’s different directions. This is, we, we generally call this like the left, the left turn or the right turn, which are more like 10 degree turns that, that end up in a different position altogether.

[00:38:41] Chris: And the best value we can create for our customer is really on solving the financing and payments. And that is our, that is what we have a lot of experience and we can, um, Create this triangulation. And what that means is opening that capital markets to, to just cheaper capital of a risk that we know is there, but we’ve, we’ve somewhat structured and flipped us on its head such that it performs the way maybe a mortgage asset or some other asset would.

[00:39:14] Chris: And that is what we’re really good at. That is in particular what I’m very good at. And, you know, there is the look in the mirror moment there. I think I’ve used that twice now. Um, Where you, where you say, is, is this, is this where we want to go over the next 46 years? We’ve had that conversation with ourselves and that’s what it is.

[00:39:32] Chris: So we don’t, we, we no longer have this pressure of we’re going to become a SAS company. Like we’re going to become a SAS company and like this other thing, we’ll get this other multiple. It’s like, this is where we create value. This is what we’re really good. This is what we’re going to do. Um, and, and just believe in our, in our space.

[00:39:52] Chris: It’s so. Our total addressable market, we, we think of about 800 billion. So we just think there’s a lot of, uh, growth opportunity between, you know, now and then,

[00:40:04] Courtney: Yeah, I think that takes so much self control. Um, a lot of founders will start to see some success and be like, we’re really good at this and I think we could be good at moving into other industries or expanding to be all things for subcontractors. But being able to say, no, we are going to focus on financing solutions, there’s plenty of room to grow here, let’s not get distracted by the other stuff, takes a lot of control, it takes a lot of focus.

[00:40:29] Courtney: Um, so I, I love that. I’m really excited to see kind of what you come up with next. It’s going to be really great.

[00:40:35] Chris: yeah, I think the struggle from a founder perspective is, and I have no answer. I’m just kind of calling out the issue is that you get a lot of influence. You get a lot of influence from your investors, from potential investors, from your team. And a lot of times it contradicts. And a lot of times it, It goes a direction that you would draw up on a whiteboard as correct, but you know, if the business could really speak to you and whisper in your ear that it would say, no, that’s the wrong way.

[00:41:06] Chris: And, um, there’s this conviction, but it’s tough because too much conviction and you’re, you’re missing something too little conviction and you’re weak and you really can’t bust through. So there’s a like odd thing and it can kind of like every day and every week can fluctuate. Um, and I’m, I guess I’m, I’m sympathetic to other founders that have this dilemma of not always such a clear vision of how you grow the business.

[00:41:32] Courtney: Do you attribute that to, like, intuition or just a gut feeling or how to make those decisions?

[00:41:39] Chris: Um, I mean, I don’t know. I think from a methodology standpoint, I, I first of all, I’d like to seek a lot of feedback and then build the feedback on itself. Um, and then I like to sit on things and marinate.

[00:41:52] Courtney: Yeah.

[00:41:53] Chris: for sometimes quite a while. Um, and then just always seek feedback. Um, and then it just, you know, it’s a little bit of this, like, you know, I think it should be this.

[00:42:05] Chris: I don’t know what you call that 

[00:42:07] Courtney: I think that is intuition of just saying something in me says that this is the right direction and nobody knows the company better than the founders, so, you know, you should make that, that decision, you know?

[00:42:19] Chris: There is, you know, there is a measurement of conviction though. So like sometimes you hear feedback from an investor or potential investor. That’s, I get a lot of feedback from potential investors, right? So you’re pitching your business, you know, every founder’s pitching their business and every potential investor will give you thoughts and you’re trying to sell to them.

[00:42:38] Chris: So that’s like product feedback, like it is from a customer. So you want to incorporate that, but there’s no conviction there. They’re just like, yeah, this, Right. You should do this. Then there’s the board, which they have every motivation and, uh, but maybe slightly less conviction cause they don’t kind of know.

[00:42:54] Chris: They, they’re also waiting on this, you know, they’re, they’re looking for the CEO and their conviction, but it measures up a bit and the conviction, you know, barometer. And then there’s the team. Right. And so measuring the intent behind the conviction is really important. So it’s like, are you advocating for this?

[00:43:11] Chris: Because it’s like, of your self interest or are you just passionate about you seeing the problem? You have the vision and it’s like, I gotta get, I better like get on board with this. Like that’s real. I need to like adjust my way of thinking. Um, and then if, if, if you don’t, then you have to temper and you’re like, well, you know, I hear that, but this is actually what we’re going to do.

[00:43:35] Chris: And this was really what being a CEO is, um, at the end of the day. It’s like kind of measuring all this stuff up. And then getting your team to be aligned on, on which direction you’re going, whether it’s, you know, whichever that direction is.

[00:43:46] Courtney: Yeah. Well, I mean, it’s also, everyone has a very specific perspective, but as a CEO, you Kind of have all of the, you know, a lot more information than each individual contributor. So, ultimately, it is, does come down to, okay, who’s making the best arguments? Are there any trends between these things? And what do we want to do as a company?

[00:44:09] Courtney: And just having that final say, it can be, it can be a lot sometimes, but it seems like it’s worked out pretty well for you so far.

[00:44:16] Chris: Yeah. And I’m, I’m super envious of the companies that are like, just do this and grow. It’s like, Oh wow. Okay. Should just do that. You know, like a box. com, you know, it’s like, Oh, just say these things. You’re competing with Dropbox. It’s this thing, this thing, just, just hire more AEs. And this is like, 

[00:44:32] Chris: um, you know, they don’t have some of those like kind of pivots.

[00:44:36] Chris: We can’t just do a several billion in material financing. Like we really need to be a compliment of different products. And sometimes this is like, uh, decisions that can be, can be challenging.

[00:44:47] Courtney: Yeah, definitely. Um, you guys are mostly in the, you’re primarily in the U. S. right now. You don’t have any international

[00:44:55] Chris: Yep. Yeah. All, all us. Yep.

[00:44:57] Courtney: Are you planning on going global at any point in the future?

[00:45:01] Chris: No, I don’t, I don’t think so. Um, I, you know, from M and a perspective, potentially something would be there at some point, um, but I don’t see any. foreseeable global activity now.

[00:45:16] Courtney: Okay, cool. Yeah, I mean, I think that makes, again, a lot of control to say, we do this well, We know the United States very well, because I’m sure in other countries, it’s just a completely different landscape than in the U. S.

[00:45:29] Chris: Yeah. I mean, some of the principles are the same Canada, Australia, Europe, but the, the challenges of, you know, maybe Canada is not, uh, as challenging, but the time zone, the, how you enter a market, what are the partners look like? It’s probably unnecessary risk given our current trajectory, uh, an opportunity with a, with a us market.

[00:45:52] Courtney: Yeah, no, that, that totally makes sense. Um, well, to wrap up here, I was asked this question. If you could give yourself one piece of advice when you were just starting out Build, what would it be? Uh, Uh, Uh huh.

[00:46:06] Chris: Um, I think it would be, it’s going to be hard, um, and it’s going to be harder than you think. And I think, I think that I know that this journey is very, very hard and it’s like soul crushingly hard, um, at times. And I, I’m, I’m kind of asked thinking of that question of what my next future self would say to me now. I think that is the best advice because we’re just doing hard things. And I know every founder is faced with the same thing. Um, these are not easy decisions, and sometimes even the right decision feels wrong. Um, and, um, are my coach always said we have, like a CEO coach that we work with is a great, uh, He always says, um, you’re, you’re, um, gosh, I can’t remember the phrase now, but you’re, um, you’re, uh, setting the journey or you’re basically projecting out front.

[00:47:03] Chris: Like, Hey, when you climb the mountain, you’re going to lose a lot. You’re going to, you’re going to be gasping for, for oxygen. And having that comfort going into it would have been helpful at some of these moments and maybe cause a little less frustration, but, um, also give them like continued to power this conviction on moving forward.

[00:47:22] Courtney: Yeah, just brace yourself. But it’s worth it. I think that’s where you should end it. It’s worth it. Amazing. Well, where can people find you online if they’re interested in build or interested in learning more about you?

[00:47:39] Chris: Yeah, I mean, pretty simple build. com, B I L L D a. com, which is the, uh, probably the best name to 

[00:47:47] Courtney: It is such a good name. It really is so perfect.

[00:47:51] Chris: Yeah. There, well, I’ll tell you a story on our name. We, it, that wasn’t our name when we first started. Um, and we, so we actually, uh, registered under a different name and then, uh, a few, months in, maybe even like 30 days in, we, we caught, uh, attention of a global brand that had a sub product deep in the basement that was named the same thing.

[00:48:15] Chris: And, um, it was not, they didn’t come to us, but we saw it and we were like, eh, maybe we should reach out and just say, is this okay? We did. And global brands don’t give permission for anything. So. We were like, shoot, we got to rename the company. Um, and it’s kind of a secret how me and me and Jesse came up with the name, uh, that, that neither one of us will ever tell.

[00:48:39] Chris: Uh, but we came up with it. And as soon as it came up, we were like, that’s it. Uh, and, uh, we’re, we’re really proud of it.

[00:48:46] Courtney: Yeah, a brilliant name and also speaks to like, that was probably really hard naming your company and then finding out, you know, a month later that it was someone else’s company and then having to quickly come up with something new. But. That’s exactly what you needed to get to Build, which is, again, one of my favorite brand names.

[00:49:03] Chris: And getting the domain was a whole nother, uh, experience and story, but I guess it was a couple of years and we ended up getting it, which was this like super crazy story of. Um, this was B. B. I. L. D. dot com. Again, another plug for our website there, but the owner was a, um, was a bill, uh, D. Last name started with a D and, um, wealthy individual, uh, in the U.

[00:49:27] Chris: S. And we found them, um, based on an old fiber, you know, fiber, um,

[00:49:35] Courtney: Yeah, yeah.

[00:49:35] Chris: a fiber handle that was connect because we couldn’t find that it was, it was like whatever the privacy

[00:49:41] Chris: stuff. And we finally found them and we reached out and said, look, we’d like to acquire, you know, and we, we said, like, we’ll pay like 10, 000. It was like, and I, and I knew the way he answered was, was like, this guy was worth tens of millions. And it was like, and I saw the address, we kind of picked up on that. He’s like, you know, I really, um, I really like having this, um, this email domain, um, you know, so now I get all my emails. And so I’ve got this like.

[00:50:11] Chris: Super millionaire guy that loves his email. So I sent him an email, um, a letter and I, I just poured my heart out. I said, everything I have is in this business. My heart, my soul, my everything. This is what our mission, this is what we’re all about. Please. You’d be, you’d be like solving so many things for us if you would sell the domain.

[00:50:30] Chris: And, uh, he responded, look, I’ll do it. And he, for 10, 000, you know, that was nominal for him. Uh, and it’s kind of like I had to give him a reasonable offer. And so we got the domain and. You know, now we’re, we’re, we’re a legit, right? It doesn’t matter. Our revenue, we have our own domain.

[00:50:45] Courtney: That’s it. I love a little bit of humanity 

[00:50:48] Chris: Yeah. Yeah. I need to find that letter.

[00:50:51] Courtney: Yeah, you should. That’s a, that’s a really good story. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for being on the show, Chris. I really appreciate your time here.

[00:50:59] Chris: Thank you. It was a pleasure.

[00:51:00] Courtney: Of course, and thank you everyone at home for listening. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please make sure to subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave us a review.

[00:51:08] Courtney: If there’s anything you’d like to hear on an upcoming episode, just let us know. For more insights and behind the scenes stories, follow us on LinkedIn or visit rightleftagency. com. And we’ll be back next week with more stories of success, innovation, and marketing strategies to help you grow. See you on the next one.